Greenock & Gourock Through Time by Bill Clark & Gaie Brown

One of the many joys of Amberley Publishing's "Through Time" series,
is the way that different authors are able to interpret the brief for the
series in different ways. The basic idea is to take a series of old photographs
of (usually) a town or city, and show each on a page with an equivalent modern
image of the same scene. Add in a helpful and informative caption that gives a
little background and describes the important changes between the old and new
views, and so on to the next view. Different authors have adopted different
approaches to deciding what works as an "equivalent modern image", and the
result ranges from the very literal to a much looser search for the way the
feel of a place has changed over time.

Gaie Brown and Bill Clark began their collaboration on "Greenock
& Gourock Through Time" after meeting as members of Inverclyde Camera Club.
It is perhaps no surprise that their approach in producing this book has been
driven very much by a photographer's eye. A series of excellent historical
images of Greenock and
Gourock has been chosen, and it
is clear that the authors have then set out to reproduce as exactly as possible
the same viewpoint in a modern photograph. This could only have been done so
effectively if the authors were actually comparing the historical photographs
with what they were looking at through their viewfinders at the moment each
image was taken, with great care taken to reproduce the viewpoint, the framing
and even the focal length of the lens used.

The result is an absolute triumph, and (perhaps because it's also
the approach we'd have taken as photographers) for us a particularly fine
example of just how effective the "Through Time" format can be. The passage of
time (and, sometimes, the encroachment of tree cover or development) has meant
it's not always been possible to stick to the exact formula, but where the
authors have varied the viewpoint, they have been at pains to say how and why.
The power of this approach is that it allows a clear demonstration of how much
(sometimes almost everything bar the odd distant spire or chimney) has changed
in some views, yet how little change has taken place elsewhere. An excellent
book for anyone with any interest in
Inverclyde.